Cocktail of the Week | Water Lily

This week we decided to be a bit more adventurous with our cocktail of the week and decided to open the Crème de Violette we bought on our recent trip to France.  The issue with using the Crème de Violette was hunting down a suitable cocktail to use it in, this was no easy task! We finally came across a drink known as a ‘Water Lily’ on saveur.com and thought it was worth a try, mainly as it meant we could try the bottle of Cointreau we picked up in Angers!

Crème de Violette is a French liqueur traditionally made with natural violet flower flavouring and has a brandy or plain spirit base. It has a distinctive floral taste that can overpower most flavours. In researching ideas for the cocktail this week, it became apparent that it is also a difficult liqueur to obtain and it seems very few drinks use it as a key ingredient as a result. It also appears that its rarity was a plot point in a 1965 episode of the Avengers. The good thing about the research we do to bring you our Cocktail of the Week is that it throws up a large number of random, but mildly interesting facts.  On the plus side, we have also found other another cocktail to try!

For the Water lily cocktail you will need a;

  • Measure of triple sec (we used Cointreau)
  • Measure of Crème de Violette
  • Measure of fresh lemon juice
  • Measure of gin
  • Twist of orange, for the garnish

Using a cocktail shaker, pour the triple sec, crème de violette, lemon juice and gin into a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake for a few minutes.   Strain the mix into a glass and garnish with the twist.

And that is this week’s cocktail! The distinctive floral taste certainly comes through strongly and tastes very much like the violet sweets that you used to get in a pick’n’mix bag thinking they were Refreshers, but were always left disappointed! As a cocktail, it makes up for those years of disappointment!

Water Lily

Orchard Blog | Water Lily
14th July 2016
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1 Comment

  • Reply Stuart

    Hi there
    Looks great! What creme de violet do you use? What gives it the rich purple colour?
    Thanks

    23rd October 2017 at 3:29 pm
  • Leave a Reply to Stuart Cancel Reply

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